Many types of machine suitable to package various products in boxes are commercially available; such boxes are of the substantially parallelepipedal type and are fed in a mutually packed and flattened configuration.
Some commercially available machines are provided with at least one rotating drum, which has a horizontal axis and is provided with a plurality of peripheral receptacles which are adapted to receive the boxes in the open configuration and to convey them continuously toward subsequent production stations after the boxes have been filled with the products to be packaged by way of the action of appropriately provided pushers. For this purpose, in conventional apparatuses there are a plurality of supporting cups which are mounted on the drum and support the products to be inserted in the boxes, each one of said cups being arranged at a respective peripheral receptacle.
Upstream of the rotating drum, the products to be packaged are usually deposited in the supporting cups by means of an appropriately provided feeder, which is constituted for example by a belt (or a chain) which is closed in a loop and is provided on its surface with conveyance teeth, which convey the products.
However, modem market requirements, aimed at constantly increasing production rates (i.e., the number of products manufactured in one minute of work of the machine) reveal some limitations of known apparatuses. In particular, it has been noted in practical operation that the transfer of the products to be packaged from the feeder belt to the cups rigidly coupled to the rotating drum is a critical point, since the execution of this transfer prevents achieving high production rates: this might in fact produce the occurrence of malfunctions and jamming in the feeding of such products.